London 1802 - William Wordsworth

 https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-wordsworth/london-1802

Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;

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Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life’s common way,

In chearful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on itself did lay.

In “London, 1802,” the speaker laments that 19th-century England has failed to maintain certain standards. These standards, the speaker believes, were perfectly exemplified by the 17th-century poet John Milton, a writer widely admired for his artistic innovation, religious devotion, and moral compass.

With this in mind, the speaker presents Milton as the model off of which England should base itself, believing that the nation should learn from Milton’s integrity in order to reverse what the speaker sees as the country’s unfortunate decline. By celebrating Milton and the values of a bygone era, then, the speaker criticizes 19th-century England while upholding that the past can (and should) inform the way people think about the present.

The speaker’s concerns about the present are closely tied to the feeling that 19th-century England as a whole has become lazy and complacent. Suggesting that the nation is now “stagnant,” the speaker implies that England has lost touch with its core values. Unlike when Milton was writing in the 17th century, the speaker upholds, the country no longer thrives in the arts or uplifts its religious principles, having stalled when it comes to “altar, sword, and pen” (religion, military pursuits, and literature, respectively).

Accordingly, the speaker calls upon Milton to restore things like “manners, virtue, freedom, [and] power” to the country, thereby implying not only that Milton represents these traits, but also that these are the very tenants that used to define England’s greatness. In this way, the speaker celebrates the commendable aspects of the nation (suggesting that the country is at least capable of virtue) while still critiquing it for letting these things fall by the wayside.

Furthermore, the speaker believes that it shouldn’t be particularly difficult for people to live up to Milton’s standards. This is because these standards aren’t that high in the first place, which is why the speaker chastises fellow citizens for failing to meet them. Milton, the speaker notes, lived in a “common way,” suggesting that the virtue he embodies isn’t actually all that rare, but rather unremarkable and commonplace.

And yet, the speaker makes it clear that these values have declined so much in British society that they are no longer “common.” It should be relatively easy, the speaker implies, to live like Milton. However, that it now seems extraordinary to exemplify this kind of virtue underscores just how far British society has fallen since Milton’s time.

The speaker calls attention to England’s societal decline in the hopes of restoring the country, but “London, 1802” isn’t just about refreshing the nation’s image. After all, the speaker also maintains that leading a virtuous life leads to contentment. Indeed, the very values that the speaker celebrates can create a sense of “cheerful godliness.” This, in turn, means that British citizens have sabotaged their own happiness by letting their values slip.

To regain this happiness, it seems, the speaker’s fellow citizens will have to look to the past and learn from honorable figures like Milton. With this in mind, Wordsworth’s speaker illustrates the usefulness of turning to history for guidance, ultimately arguing that doing so will improve individual lives as well as society at large.